There's nothing like a stormy August day to make you want to jet off to get some sunshine.. So that's what we've done!
My dad arrived at 9 am and, after Mat going through his checklist about 200 times, we departed for the cowshed.. Sorry, East Midlands Airport (EMA according to the boarding passes.)
In true Cooke tradition, we arrived far too early, but as we had already checked in, we checked in again just to make sure..
Had a pretty easy ride through passport control although Holly did get her bag searched and checked for drugs...
After waiting around for about 2 hours, we boarded the plane which thundered down the runway, fighting a bit of a blustery cross wind. Not the smoothest takeoff I have experienced but we got up into the big blue.
Flight was very uneventful with no turbulence and, after what seemed like a few minutes, the pilot announced that we were 'over Brussels' I resisted the urge to spit out of the the window.
We watched the sunset from the aircraft and were amazed at the beauty of it! As we were travelling sort of south south east at this point, it set ridiculously quickly
(photo credit to Holly)
We touched down rather brutally in Heraklion and came to a stop at the terminal, disembarked and proceeded through passport control without any issues.
This is where it all got interesting...
We located the desk from which we were to get the taxi and... Well I don't speak Greek but when the guy has to make 3 phone calls and is scratching his head; you know there is a bit of a problem..
Turns out the flight that was on the transfer ticket was LS709 and was due to land at 1900 hrs.. Now I checked with Trailfinders after noticing a discrepancy with the arrival times and they said that the taxi firm monitored flights (I hadn't noticed the flight number at this point) and, if the flight was delayed, they would adjust accordingly. LS709 wasn't delayed... Nor was LS625, the flight we were on..
The taxi firm were awesome though and we got a fantastic driver in a rather posh, mahoosive Mercedes who sped us, literally, to the hotel.. His son is coming to Sunderland this October to study, l pointed out that he should pack a lot of warm clothes as the North East of England is freezing in winter... And a bit hit and miss in summer too!
If I thought that the taxi was a bit of a debacle, the hotel was a good old British farce..
The lady at the hotel check-in desk was incredibly helpful but it was pretty obvious that there was a problem...
We booked the holiday through Trailfinders on February 17th and it turns out they book the hotel through an intermediary supplier who had inexplicably cancelled the room on April 2nd... I suspect because of COVID-19..
Fortunately the hotel had rooms and they found a 2 rooms next to each other.
I phoned Trailfinders and they said that they would sort out the problem with the intermediary supplier the following morning.
The room we are in is very nice with a balcony and a view of the mountains.
(photo credit to Holly)
Although we only found out about the mountains the following day as it was dark when we arrived.
The hotel restaurant had closed by the time we had arrived so we dumped the cases in our respective rooms and headed out into the night to see what we could find to eat in Hersonissos. As none of us really felt like a big meal, we ended up finding a supermarket and got some cold meats, cheeses and olives. We wandered back to the hotel and sat on the beach and had a bit of a picnic.
After this it was back to the hotel rooms and bed. Thank goodness for air conditioning...
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